Will this Recipe Work?

[Mattthemazer]

Hi all,
So, I'm kinda new to home brewing. I'm starting with mead because it seems the least costly and easiest thing to start with (I'm sure there are many who'll disagree; but this is just what I've found).

I've already made a few batches of quick stuff that turned out great, and so I decided to write my own, more experimental recipe. I'm wondering if someone with more experience can tell me if there's anything I need to change before I go ahead and spend money on the ingredients (I'm sure it'll end up being expensive). I particularly am unsure how much blueberries I should use. I also know I'm probably doing a lot of unnecessary things, but from the reading I've done I think they're all acceptable things to do (correct me if I'm wrong). I also leave out the sanitizing because that's common sense and I don't want to type "clean and sanitize and rinse" a million times.

So, here it is:

"Triple-Blueberry Melomel"

Ingredients:
-1 kg (approx 700mls) blueberry blossom honey
-3 packets ale yeast (coopers probably, it's the only one I can find in my area)
-500mls? blueberries
-blueberry syrup (contains potassium sorbate, who knew!!)
-about 5L water, (the tap water where I'm from is really really good, so I'll just use that)

Procedure:
1. Blend blueberries with a little bit of water and 100mls honey
2. Add water till total mash is 1L, boil 15mins, stirring constantly
3. Remove from heat, add 250mls honey till dissolved fully
4. Cover, cool completely.
5. Strain mash
6. Put solids into half gallon/2L jug, add 50mls honey, add water till full, add 1 packet ale yeast, cover with lid, shake to aerate, replace lid with airlock.
7. Take liquid portion of mash, put in one gallon/4L jug, add remainder of honey, add 2 yeast packets, add water till full, aerate, airlock
8. Wait till fermentation stops completely
9. Rack off lees and blueberry skins into new clean larger jug, with airlock (combine both jugs into one basically, assuming that the lees/blueberry bits will take up a fair bit of space and so the liquid used will fit into one container. I'll have to play around with volumes; if someone can give advice that would be great!)
10. Wait 6 weeks
11. Re-rack off of whatever else settles out, add blueberry syrup, age for 6 months,
12. Bentonite if not fully clear
13. Bottle, age for 3 months
12. Enjoy!

Calculated O.G.=1.088
Calculated F.G (before syrup)=1.025
Predicted ABV=8.28%

Thoughts?

 

[Newsman]

You left off yeast nutrient. You'll probably need plenty of that, at least from what I've read, since honey doesn't have a lot of nutrients for yeast. And oxygenate the hell of out it just before you pitch your yeast as well. Use pure O2 if you can.

 

[Mattthemazer]

I didn't want to add yeast nutrient because I'd like to keep the ingredients them self as few as possible. I figured the actual blueberries and their juice will provide enough nutrients. And I'm sure there's no harm in yeast nutrient (it's just dead yeast cells, right?) but it just seemed unnecessary because of the fruit. But I'll do more research, it might be a good idea regardless. I just haven't used it before so I didn't even think about it. Thanks!

 

[Newsman]

No prob. Nutrient also contains minerals and such which help the yeast grow.

 

[fatbloke]

Don't blitz/crush the fruit as it will be a SOB to rack off or strain.......

Pectic enzyme not only helps prevent pectins hazing the batch but also help with colour/flavour extraction - just freeze the fruit then defrost it. If you're worried about wild yeast just rinse the fruit in sulphite solution first, strain the liquid away then freeze the fruit.

don't add the blueberry syrup unless you're using it to back sweeten.......

and don't cook the fruit in any way first, that's both unnecessary and mainly pointless.......

 

[Mattthemazer]

Oh, yea the point of the syrup is to back sweeten, and it's a bonus that the one I found has potassium sorbate already in it. I was going to strain the mash through a wire mesh strainer and then a coffee filter, so most of the seeds will be separate from the skins. The skins are where I was hoping the yeast nutrients would come from. That's also what I'd be boiling it for, more for extracting flavours from the fruit than sanitizing. But again, it is more to think about! Thanks.
If you were doing it, how many blueberries would you use?